Charlene O’Brien doesn’t want help. The 38-year-old single mother of two has built her life on being a strong, independent woman.

The Hardyston divorcee has a full-time job training educators, which she balances with raising her 7 and 10 year-old boys, the latter of which has special needs. In her spare time she runs and designs grueling obstacle courses, the kind that make even the biggest fitness buff think twice.

But O’Brien knows today she needs help. She just doesn’t know where to turn to get it … //

… For O’Brien, there has been some solace in learning she isn’t alone. In 2015, she went to a United Way event where a woman shared her story of struggle. Sitting in the audience, she began to cry.

“The story she was telling was mine,” she said. “And I just said ‘wow, I’m not alone.’ So if this is an opportunity for me to stand up and put a voice to this, I want to do that, because this is happening too frequently to too many people.”

US: Serial house sitters shed the shackles of a mortgage, on CNBC, by Kayleigh Kulp, Feb 10, 2017: David and Kathy Cutts traded their $2,800-a-month Lake Tahoe rental for serial house-sitting gigs when they retired a year ago, preferring instead to live rent-free around the world in exchange for caring for people’s pets …;

US: People spend the biggest chunk of their income on housing in these towns [STATISTICS], on New Jersey nj, by Erin Petenko, Jan 16, 2017: it’s expensive to be poor in New Jersey. People living in the Garden State — particularly low-income residents — are frequently spending a large chunk of their income on monthly housing costs, according to a new report from United Way …;